Appeal 2012 art, law and the media

Installation

Participant artists, or jury members, met in the exhibition space on Tuesday 4 September and from this date forward worked to install ‘APPEAL 2012’.

This constantly morphing exhibition continued to shapeshift as the ‘jury’ of participating artists in this fictitious court case 001/05/08 integrate their aesthetic responses to the assembled evidence that deals with notions of judicial redress. The project as a whole became fully evident at the finissage on Monday 24 September, in a final iteration that could be understood as a joint proposition about transformation.

Here follows a brief summary of the interventions week by week:

Week One leading up to the vernissage

*Elgin Rust installed her core installation, the trial RvJR 2010, in the main exhibition space. This first phase of the installation forms the initial hearing of the imaginary case 001/05/2008 (judicial versus aesthetic redress) to which participant artists respond.

*Catherine Dickerson created her first in a series of inflatable sculptures from refuse bags and powered by electric fan, the shapes taking inspiration from ink Rorschach drawings created by fellow jury members.

*Amber-Jade Geldenhuys installed defunct surveillance cameras from an existing perforation in the ceiling of the ‘jury room’, adjacent the main exhibition space, as well as a sculpture entitled Static Mobile from the ceiling of the adjacent ‘judges’ room’.

*Ansie Greyling took away some ‘evidence’ from Elgin Rust’s installation in order to create her own visual response.

*Kadromatt and Mma Tseleng explored early kwaito’s use of language in Case # 001/05/1994-2004: Sghubu vs The People on the exhibition’s openining night. Building from Hillbrow: The Map, a mixtape and cassette sleeve publication that looked at royalty and ownership cases in early Kwaito, the duo performed a set that investigated music’s disregard for morals, the media, academia, hypocrisy and society’s double standards.

*Kai Lossgott took a found page of Rust’s evidence from a legal statute book and using a typewriter overlaid it with variations on the oath to sworn testimony. It is presented on an LED lightbox in the ‘judge’s room’, entitled truth addicts anonymous. Lossgott also presents a performance installation that comprises a typewriter on found courtroom furniture in one of the exhibition side rooms with an electric fan, water and magnetic tape from legal recordings - a work in progress entitled the witless.

*Leroye Malaton observed the installation by making sketches and decided upon his forthcoming intervention, which involves reassembling and reconfiguring Rust’s installation The Ship of Fools over the forthcoming week.

*Agnes Marton installed her poetry T-shirts around the exhibition space. On opening night, Marton gave unannounced poetry readings that followed a private poetry reading the day prior in the exhibition space to participant artists.

*Sandile Radebe began his installation in cardboard that takes a playful cue from the architecture of the exhibition space, addressing a perceived imbalance in the built environment as a visual comment on redress.

*Pauline Theart visited the exhibition space to prepare for her later sound art intervention. She performs a lullaby into the exhibition space in response to perceived trauma in the work - at the artists’ walkabout September 15, the public workshop September 22, and the finissage September 24.

*Marguerite Visser selected samples of evidence from Rust’s installation and reconfigured them in relation to assembled artworks. She documented these juxtapositions and her work in progress comprises sketch work and collage.

Week Two leading up to the Artists’ Walkabout on September 15

*Elgin Rust continued work on her core installation. This included setting out artworks from jury members who participated in a previous iteration of the exhibition, which manifested in Cape Town, in the ‘jury room’. She worked on her tower, spooling tape ribbons from the ceiling to the floor, and refined various elements of the installation as a whole.

*Ansie Greyling returned with her ‘evidence’ - a courtroom chair, which she has transformed into a site-specific installation called Gogga that was installed on 15 September, climbing two adjacent walls.

*Leroye Malaton started dissembling Elgin Rust’s Ship of Fools September 14 and by September 18 had reconfigured all the elements into a new sculptural installation Order Out of Chaos that is a kind of psycheography about how it feels to be inside a courtroom scenario.

*Sandile Radebe began his second cardboard sculptural work, a play with graffiti lettering as spatial form.

*Pauline Theart performed her lullaby in the exhibition space at the artists’ walkabout on 15 September, part of her broader exploration of voice and song in sound art. She will perform it again at the public workshop on 22 September and the finissage 24 September.

Week Three leading up to the finissage September 24

*Catherine Dickerson created her second in a series of inflatable sculptures from refuse bags and powered this time by hairdryers, one positioned on a courtroom chair and the other on the leg of a courtroom table that forms part of Rust’s installation, The Law of Dreams. The sculptures are attached to a timer, which inflates and deflates them at intervals.

*Amber-Jade Geldenhuys installed a live monitor screen next to her camera installation in the jury room, monitoring the movement of viewers in an adjacent room.

*Ikram Lakhdhar sent her artwork from the US by post, which takes as cue the other artists’ works interwoven with a personal family response.

*Kai Lossgott effected at the finissage a performance installation including a typewriter, found legal statute book pages, water magnetic tape.

*Naadira Patel installed a video and sound work in the vault room adjacent the judges’ room for the finissage.

*Pauline Theart performed at the finissage the final in a trilogy of songs into the space - a lullaby in response to perceived trauma in the work.

*Marguerite Visser completed her proposal board regarding narrative imagination that conceives of a piece of evidence in various roles - as perpetrator and victim. She finalised her wall drawing of Lady Justice, which imagines a subjective notion of justice as an alternative to ‘objective’ justice.